Page 68 - SAMENA Trends - May-June 2022

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Saudi Arabia Forges Ahead with Health Service Digital Transformation on

Back of COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has inadvertently provided the ministry’s information technology infrastructure by deploying
springboard to spur on the digital transformation of Saudi Arabia’s VMware Cloud Foundation as the unifying platform for its cloud
public healthcare sector. The strain placed on the Kingdom’s health environment, spreading workloads across the clouds of service
services by the COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the need for more providers including STC and Mobily. Ministry Information Security
robust apps, such as booking platforms for vaccinations and General Director, Khalid Al-Medbel, said: “The Ministry of Health
remote access to patient records. As a result, the Saudi Ministry of seeks to achieve the highest levels of excellence in healthcare
Health has been forging ahead with the introduction of multi-cloud in line with the aims of Saudi Vision 2030. This means having
solutions, built on VMware Cloud Foundation, to boost provision to the best multi-cloud foundation to optimize operations, raise
the country’s growing population of more than 35 million people. efficiency, and drive innovation across the country’s healthcare
The Ministry can now offer secure, cloud-based services to a range providers. “Thanks to our digital transformation with VMware,
of public healthcare providers including hospitals, clinics, and all public healthcare providers will have access to best-in-class
pharmacies, significantly boosting their efficiency, and enabling cloud services that will improve operations and boost healthcare
them to grow and innovate. Health officials have simplified the provision for citizens and residents.” By utilizing VMware, the
Ministry has gained access to a complete set of highly secure
software-defined services for compute, storage, network, security,
Kubernetes, and cloud management. Once fully deployed, Saudi
Arabia’s public healthcare system will benefit from the resiliency,
agility, and efficiency offered by the shared cloud platform. Each
healthcare facility will have access to virtual infrastructure and
as-a-service apps and will also be able to design and deploy apps
from the cloud, giving them the freedom to innovate and provide
world-class services to patients. Saif Mashat, Saudi Arabia country
director for VMware, said: “The Ministry of Health’s transformation
with VMware shows the power of multi-cloud to re-invent healthcare
with the highly efficient use of resources, and unleash new levels of
agility and innovation. “We look forward to working in partnership
with the ministry as it continues to move workloads to the new
environment and offer more cloud-enabled services to healthcare
providers across the country.” Over the coming months, ministry
officials plan to deploy more VMware solutions — including for
additional cybersecurity and secure distributed working — to bring
additional app development capabilities to the Kingdom’s public
healthcare providers.

Bahrain iGA Discusses $4.5m Procurement Requests at Key Meeting

Bahrain's Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) has Khater; Deputy CE, Operations and Governance Dr. Khalid Ahmed
announced that procurement requests by government entities Almutawa; Ministry of Finance and National Economy Director of
valued at BD1.7 million ($4.5 million) were discussed at the second Financial Systems Development, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah Dhaif;
meeting of the Information and Communication Technology Director of Services and Information Technology at the Prime
Governance Committee (ICTGC) held via videoconference. Minister’s Office, Ahmed Al Qayem; University of Bahrain Dean of
The meeting, chaired by iGA Chief Executive Mohammed Ali Al the College of Information Technology, Dr. Hessa Jassim Al Junaid;
Qaed, covered a wide range of topics, including several strategic and Information Technology Project Management Consultant, Ali
government projects and procurement requests. It also included AlSoufi. The committee later reviewed an Information Management
a discussion on ways to make taxi services more accessible System (IMS) project for the Ministry of Works, Municipalities
to citizens, residents and visitors and help improve customer Affairs & Urban Planning, which will streamline the updating and
satisfaction. This will contribute to stronger transportation and management of data at testing laboratories and improve their
tourism services nationwide, the members said. The meeting was output, in line with the requirements of the testing and calibration
attended by ICTGC Vice Chairman and iGA Deputy CE of Electronic laboratories (ISO 17025). In addition, the Committee covered
Transformation Dr Zakareya Ahmed AlKhajah; Ministry of Education other projects, policies, strategies, and their performance. It also
Undersecretary for Policies, Strategies and Performance, Nawal Al reviewed implemented decisions from previous meetings.

68 MAY-JUNE 2022